Africa Great Lakes Democracy Watch

Welcome toAfrica Great Lakes Democracy Watch Blog.Our objective is to promote the institutions of democracy,social justice,Human Rights,Peace, Freedom ofExpression, and Respect to humanity in Rwanda,Uganda,DR Congo, Burundi,Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya,Ethiopia, and Somalia. We strongly believe that Africa will develop if only our presidents stop being rulers of men and become leaders of citizens. We support Breaking the Silence Campaign for DR Congo since we believe the democracy in Rwanda means peace inDRC. Follow this link to learn more about the origin of the war in both Rwanda and DR Congo:http://www.rwandadocumentsproject.net/gsdl/cgi-bin/library

Friday, August 17, 2012

RWANDA-ICC:Groups: Investigate Rwanda's Kagame for War Crimes

From the Associated Press
Rwandan and Congolese groups opposed to Rwandan President Paul Kagame's
rule asked the International Criminal Court on Friday to investigate him
for war crimes for allegedly backing rebel groups in eastern Congo.
A small group gathered outside the court in The Hague, Netherlands, with
banners reading "Kagame Assassin," and "Freedom for Congo."
The gesture is mostly symbolic, as it is up to Court Prosecutor Fatou
Bensouda to investigate Kagame. She is already probing members of the
M23 rebel group in eastern Congo that formed this April with alleged
ties to his regime across the border. Kagame denies involvement.
Christopher Black, a lawyer for the groups that want Kagame
investigated, said Friday that Bensouda need only turn to the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to launch a case against
Kagame, asserting it has a "mountain" of evidence against him in its
archives. Kagame has been an important military leader in Rwanda since
1990 and its president since 2000.
The U.N.-backed Rwanda tribunal, based in Tanzania, never pressed
charges against Kagame, long seen as key ally for Western powers in
central Africa.
But Friday's demand for action follows a report issued by the U.N. in
July that accused high-ranking Rwandan officials of helping to create,
arm and support the current M23 rebellion within Congo.

A bipartisan group of U.S. legislators on Aug. 3 also sent a strongly
worded letter to Kagame saying they are "absolutely convinced that
Rwanda is involved in supporting the unrest" in eastern Congo.
Several Western countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, have suspended some aid to Rwanda as a result.
Kagame, an ethnic Tutsi, has a history of intervention in eastern Congo.
Rwanda first invaded its neighbor to the west in 1996, pursuing Rwandan
Hutus who fled after committing the 1994 Rwandan genocide of some
800,000 Tutsis. It took Kagame a year to admit that his troops had
invaded eastern Congo.
The move was in part self-defense as U.N. and Western powers failed to
act while the "genocidaires" used the cover of massive refugee camps to
arm themselves and make incursions into Rwanda.
Remnants of the genociders in Congo formed the Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, which has become part of a never-ending
cycle of violence in eastern Congo. Kagame's government fears they could
one day invade Rwanda.
In response, Kagame first orchestrated a rebellion of Congolese Tutsis
led by Rwandan soldiers that toppled Congo's longtime dictatorship and
precipitated back-to-back civil wars that drew in the armies of eight
African nations in a scramble for Congo's massive mineral resources.
Some 5 million people died before the war ended in 2003.
After Rwandan troops withdrew under international pressure, Kagame
turned to proxies, supporting a Congolese Tutsi-led rebellion that
engulfed east Congo in 2008. To end that insurgency, Congo's President
Joseph Kabila signed a pact allowing the rebels to integrate into the
army and for Rwandan troops to come into Congo for three months to again
hunt down the FDLR.
The mutinying soldiers who began this year's insurgency were once part of the 2008 rebellion.
Protestors outside the International Criminal Court Friday seemed most
concerned with Kagame's possible involvement in events of the 1990s,
especially leading up to and after the 1994 genocide. But the ICC would
only have jurisdiction over any war crimes he committed after the court
came into being in 2002.